Far From Home
by TheAllPowerfulOz
Summary: This wasn't something ethereal and distant looking, wasn't symptoms they spoke of with warning and dread, this was his very life slipping away, and he had no way to stop it... May contain slight spoilers for those who haven't played Brotherhood yet.


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** Far From Home**

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It was fun at first, sinking so deeply into someone else's skin, all his own problems were forgotten. It was nice to just… just not exist for a little bit. To be someone else.

Someone who didn't have to worry about the fact they were being held hostage by crazy people and hooked up to strange, eerie pieces of machinery that could read your very DNA like a genealogist's final report, and then play out that report like a world class LARP in your head.

It was fun at first, being Altair.

And when he was introduced to Ezio? Well, that just made it all the better.

But… it got kinda' old after a while, and Ezio's life was a lot shittier than his on certain aspects… And was he actually supposed to FEEL IT when one of them got hurt? Was he actually supposed to believe he himself had been stabbed or shot or burned? Was he really supposed to have that pain linger for days after the session?

Because, that wasn't fun at all.

And it wasn't fun when THEY started thinking it was fun to wear him like a bunch of Role Play garb. Strutting him around and talking to people who weren't there.

It wasn't fun when he started recognizing their mannerisms as he spoke, their thoughts when he was alone… their languages on his tongue.

It wasn't fun anymore when he started having their dreams… and their nightmares.

It wasn't fun anymore when he started losing himself to their desires. It wasn't fun when he stopped shaving because the part of him that was now Ezio and no longer Desmond thought beards made you look wiser and he wanted that annoying British asshole to stop implying he was stupid.

It wasn't fun anymore when the part of him that wasn't Ezio, and wasn't Desmond and wasn't really Altair, but was a strange mash of both and the insanity they were left with after the Apple, decided that he didn't need sleep any longer because there was a ninety-seven percent chance one of his teammates was leaking information to the Templars.

It wasn't fun any more when he looked into the mirror one morning and the person who was staring back at him wasn't himself.

This wasn't something ethereal and distant looking, wasn't symptoms they spoke of with warning and dread, this was his very life slipping away, and he had no way to stop it.

The hopelessness, anger and self loathing… The confusion and desperation for something—ANYTHING to ground who he was so he would never fully forget. That was not fun at all.

He told them what he was experiencing because of that THING, that Animus, and they made him do it anyway… Veiling their eagerness to plug him in with him-hawing and passive aggressive bullshit that left all three of the people in his head feeling like jerks and murderers because they didn't want to climb in and 'help save the world' by losing a little bit more of themselves.

So, he sighed, lowered his face and nodded.

He remembered reading Tolkein after he'd escaped the Farm, reading it while he was on a train heading from one side of the country to the other, because someone had left it in the seat next to him and he needed a distraction from all the unfriendly faces around him.

He felt like Bilbo Baggins, small and cold and like butter scraped over too much bread. His soul had been infinitely and ineffably spun into this all seeing devil ring and he would never get it back. When it was ripped away there would be nothing but a big, jagged hole torn in him that would never heal. Would just keep on pining for that goddamned ring…

He wouldn't say it out loud, but over time he saw the others as Hobbits along with him. Stopped seeing himself entirely as Bilbo because Bilbo, that bastard had been lucky, he hadn't felt the full soul-purging pull of that godawful THING at the end and been completely and utterly overpowered by it. Unable to resist any longer, unable to remember the greenness of grass, or the coolness of the air. Or the taste of his favorite food.

No, Desmond found himself thinking he was Frodo, Lucy and Becca as Merry and Pippin, the happy-go-lucky little shits who promised to help him, but ended up swept up in a tale of their own, too engrossed in the lives of kings and Wizards and happy talking tree-folk to see that their friend, one of their own was letting this gilded trinket of Satan steal his mind, body and soul to save them all. Was, mentally, physically and spiritually sacrificing himself so that the world could go on turning from under the grotesque, bloated claw of evil.

And all the while this fucking riddle spouting ghost of a man was trying to lead him awry, trying to kill him to take the damned thing for himself. Poisoning the fragile remnants of his mind with lies and visions of things he craved but would never have because he was too far dead already.

Desmond saw so much of himself and what was happening to him in those fucking books he found it hard to believe he wasn't dreaming, hadn't just fallen asleep on the train to New York and would wake up dazed with goo in the corners of his eye and drool on his chin. He told himself that when he did wake up, he was writing all this shit down because it would blow Lord of The Rings out of the fucking water…

But he never did wake up on the train with goo in his eyes and drool on his chin. Instead he continued delving deeper and deeper, kept going a little more and a little more insane, obsessed with that damned gold ball in a painful, needing, hateful way.

And then that bitch—Oh, that BITCH.

He remembered Mythology, had been fascinated with the old Gods, with the very concept of God since he'd escaped the Farm because nobody had ever told him who, or what it was. Zeus had many lovers, many female, and on occasion male lovers, the promiscuous bearded fucker, had fathered Hercules with Hera and Christ if he remembered how many other Demi-Gods, but he'd only had one wife… Only one wife, and what a harpy she was.

At first he'd thought she was pretty, but with every word that came out of her mouth he saw more and more how ugly she was inside, how treacherous and conniving and—Oh, that BITCH!

He'd just wanted to shut her up, just for a little bit, just shut her up and take his little hell trinket and get out—

He felt himself on that fiery chasm, staring down at the one and only thing that could stop it all, the one and only thing that could destroy this bauble of doom—and he couldn't do it. It—it had become so… so precious.

He felt like Frodo again, even worse now because when that BITCH was gone, when the Gollum she had become in his eyes had toppled over the cliff the THING hadn't gone with her… And Lucy was staring at him, gripping at him in shock and panic and disbelieving pain and he could feel her blood in his hand like warm silk.

He doesn't remember if he screamed or not, doesn't remember anything that happened after that truthfully.

The next thing he remembers, or tells himself he remembers, is wind on his face, feeling small and ineffectual bundled like an infant in thick blankets and strong arms, a chin pressed to his forehead. There was murmuring, as if whoever were holding him were talking into a pillow stuffed into a glass jar full of water.

Everything was muffled, even his thoughts, hazed and not quite solid. But that was alright, because he wasn't thinking about himself at the moment, or what he'd done or even where that goddamned Apple was. He was thinking about those arms, supporting and protecting him. He was thinking that he'd forgotten someone. Forgotten one of those annoying little fuzzy footed hobbits, the one who really hadn't had to come at all, but did because he knew, knew that a burden like this was less crushing if there were two heads to sit it on, two necks from which to hang the preverbal albatross.

And even though Shaun shouted, even though he was rude and cranky and full of himself there was something that had always been there, but that Desmond had never taken the time to actually stop and look at it properly.

_I'll go mad, I'll go completely insane. I'll lose myself, my body and soul and he'll still be here until it's over. When I can't talk, he'll listen anyway. When I can't think he'll explain it again. When I can't see, he'll hold my hand. When I can't stand he'll carry me. _

_And one day, one day I'll end up getting him killed. _

_Why did he follow me this far? He could have turned back a long time ago. Could have run away and let me burn, but he didn't._

_Why? _

_He doesn't have to endure this. He doesn't have to torture himself with this hell, he's here willingly… Why didn't he run away?_

_I didn't want this, I know he didn't want it… If I'd been given the chance to turn back I would have… I would have left him. I would have left them all— Without a moment's hesitation I would have run—I did run once. If I'd had the chance I would have run again… But he hasn't._

_Why didn't he leave me when he had the chance?_

The chin pressed to his brow shifted and something dry and warm was pressed into its place, something careful, protective, healing and… and loving, even in its miniscule nature.

Had Shaun been able to hear his thoughts at that moment, had he been able to tell Desmond was aware, even the slightest bit, he would have said something scathing, something like 'Someone's got to change your diapers.' But he would have thought, at the same moment, would have known that Desmond needed to be goaded. That coddling him and telling him the whole truth of it would only make it harder to continue. Making him angry gave him something to fight for. Making him angry meant he would come out of this swinging and ready to knock Shaun's block off. Making him angry meant he wouldn't give in to the urges, give into the desperation and pretty pictures painted in that firefly orb of ancient knowledge.

Making him angry meant that Desmond was still Desmond because Altair and Ezio had more to worry about than what some twiggy little redhead thought of them.

But, Shaun couldn't hear Desmond's thoughts at that moment, he didn't even know if the younger man would ever wake up, or if he would slowly and silently sail away into the grey mist, never to be seen again.

"You've got to wake up sometime, you know. We need you. You're the last hope we have."

And Desmond heard him, through that pillow in the glass jar filled with water, he heard every word of it and he felt himself, felt his soul maybe, gripping back at Shaun with such tenacity it was almost painful. _'I can be their hope, I can do that… If you'll be mine… I don't have any left for myself, but if you'll be my hope, if you'll be what I can't be for myself, then I can do it.'_

"We're for this together, Des… God, help us, but we're for this together. 'In it for a mile, in it for the march' as they say…"

_Yes… but we're already so far from home. Will we ever find our way back again?_

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_I wrote this for hubby dearest, and he said I should post it for you all to read._

_Love, OZ_

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